


Like An Opened Bird Cadge

by PenguinKiwis



Series: Penguin's Flash Fiction Fridays [39]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Flash Fiction, Gen, Order 66 Didn't Happen (Star Wars), Self-Loathing, mentioned death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:20:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinKiwis/pseuds/PenguinKiwis
Summary: It's time to let them go, because he wasn't ever good enough to be called theirs.
Relationships: 104th Battalion | Wolfpack Battalion & Plo Koon
Series: Penguin's Flash Fiction Fridays [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178669
Kudos: 10





	Like An Opened Bird Cadge

**Author's Note:**

> Request: 141. "I don't think I was ever good enough for them." Plo on how he thinks he was never good enough to lead

The war was over. 

Those four words carried so much weight— off of some people’s shoulders, and putting more on others. 

Plo was somewhere in between, he supposed.

The Order would be leaving Coruscant soon, leaving the Republic and returning to being neutral, and Plo rarely had to worry about Dorin’s situation— Representative Lun Feng had everything under control— but that wasn’t what weighed so heavily on him.

Barring Krell,— who had been hunted down and was also in custody— Plo Koon had been the Jedi with the most casualties. 

An entire fleet— three flagships full of sentient beings— gone because of him. Their life lights snuffed out in seconds, for some, for others it was a time filled with agonizing fear before they were jettisoned into the cold vice-grip of space.

“Will you continue to work with the 104th, Master Koon?” Mace Windu asked him as they walked through the hangar. They had been overseeing the loading of transport ships in preparation to leave Coruscant. Plo simply stilled. 

The Clones had requested, once the Order had broken off the whole “property of the Republic” bit, to stay with the Order, and who were they to deny them what they wanted? But Plo’s heart and mind were heavy.

The hours, days, months, _years_ of constant war were catching up to him. 

“I will not,” Plo said after a moment. **“I don't think I was ever good enough for them** in the first place— to lead them, that is. I will not burden them with my decisions that end up with them injured or dead them any longer.”

He didn’t see what expression Mace was making as he continued walking.

“Even though they are your sons?” he heard his fellow Jedi ask.

“A parent understands when it is time to let go,” he responded, forcing the tremor out of his voice. “They deserve to know a world outside of my influence and casualty heavy track record. My 'best' would have never been able to keep them safe, if the War had not ended when it had. I was not good enough then, and would never be had the War not ended."

He paused, tilting his head as he gazed at the former soldiers in gray armor as they helped their brothers in blue load up another ship. But he didn’t look for long, turning away and continuing on.

The Wolfpack had done _nothing_ to deserve him and the death he had brought to them.

It was time for him to let them go, and for them to forge their own path in freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> haha wow self-loathing, my favorite
> 
> Come bother me on my Writing Tumblr [here](https://penguinkiwi-writes.tumblr.com/) or on my main blog [here](https://penguinkiwi.tumblr.com/)


End file.
